Detached

by Elicia Hyder

Something inside me snapped. “Bess has been here for less than a week, and she’s already closer family to me than you are.”

  Bess smiled. “Would you like me to stay, Nyx?”

  I refocused on my mother. “This is your home, so you can do what you want, but my recommendation would be to get as far away from this witch as possible.”

  I didn’t have to tell Bess twice. She turned and made a beeline for her room, slamming and locking the door behind her.

  At my request, Orion had left. Mal wasn’t exactly discreet, and because she would be able to see him, I wasn’t ready to explain to Bess why an invisible man was in our house. He went on to check out whatever growing endeavors Kush might have been involved with, so only the three of us remained. One dysfunctional little family.

  “What do you want, Mal?” I asked.

  “I had a visit from some of your friends yesterday.” She walked over and sat down on my sofa, plunking her heavy designer purse on the cushion beside her.

  “I heard you were your usual charming self.”

  Mal crossed her lean legs, folding her hands over a bony knee. “They told me about your father. I came as soon as I could.”

  I smirked. “There isn’t any insurance money if that’s what you’re after.”

  Ransom slapped a hand over his mouth to unsuccessfully stop a fit of laughter.

  “You sound just like your grandfather,” Mal said.

  “At least I got some good sense from somewhere.”

  “I came to check on my children. Is that so terrible?” She pushed her silky dark hair back over her shoulder. “You’ve experienced a devastating loss.”

  “Bullshit. You came to see which of us inherited Elias’s gift.” Ransom looked at me. “We had a nice Jerry Springer talk on the drive over here.”

  “I bet.” I jerked my head to the side. “Can I talk to you in private?”

  “Privacy isn’t necessary. I’m your mother,” Mal said.

  “Exactly. Ransom?” I lifted my brow.

  My brother and I walked down the hall, past the front door.

  “Sorry,” he said again. “She just showed up at my house.”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “I didn’t tell her shit.”

  But Mal showing up in Reno told me plenty—she didn’t know who Ransom’s father was either.

  “So why did you bring her here?” I asked.

  “She wanted to see you. She said the cops questioned her about the plant, but I’m not sure she’s ever known much about it. I don’t think she even knows that it grows where blood is spilled inside the Boundary.”

  In my peripheral vision, I saw Mal’s eyes widen. She was listening to our conversation.

  I turned my back to her and lowered my voice even more. “You didn’t tell her about the other thing?”

  He shook his head.

  “Good. Now, how do we get rid of her?”

  “You don’t!” Mal called from the living room.

  “How the hell did she hear that?” Ransom asked, looking over my head.

  “I know where the plant is, Saphera.”

  Definitely not what I was expecting. I spun around. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me. Would you like to know where it is or not?”

  “Why didn’t you tell the police last night?” I asked as Ransom followed me back to the living room.

  “And risk going back to prison? I don’t think so.” Mal folded her thin arms. “Besides, the information isn’t free.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Of course it isn’t. What’s your price?”

  “I want what’s already owed to me.” She looked at Ransom.

  My brother looked caught.

  “Done,” I said before he could screw anything up.

  Mal turned her evil gaze toward me. “You speak for him now?”

  “I know how dangerous that plant is. Whatever you want from Ransom is worth the cost.”

  Ransom held up a hand. “Hold on now. What exactly do you want, Mal?”

  “Oh, please. I’m not telling you anything in front of the police.” She cast her eyes toward me. “But that does bring me to my second request.”

  “More a demand, isn’t it?” I asked.

  “Call it what you like.”

  “What is it?”

  “Immunity. If I tell you where the plant is, I’m not going back to prison. My name won’t be brought into this investigation again, at all.”

  “Am I supposed to tell them I pulled the plant’s location out of my ass?” I asked.

  “I don’t give a damn what you tell them as long as you leave my name out of it.”

  “Fine.”

  “And I want some hypnox.”

  “What?” My voice jumped up a few decibels. “Haven’t you already learned what that shit is capable of?”

  She stood and walked the kitchen. “I’ve learned how to use it responsibly. It would be for personal endeavors, nothing illegal, of course.”

  “Right,” Ransom said.

  “I could keep the information to myself and take all the hypnox I want, but as you know, I’m not the only one who knows where that plant is.” Mal opened a few cabinets and then the refrigerator.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  “Something to put my hypnox in. Aha!” She pulled out a brand new jar of pickles, opened it with a pop, and dumped the pickles into the trash.

  I looked at my brother. His shoulders rose slightly. The important thing was finding the plant. Thousands of people could die if we didn’t.

  “Where is it?” I asked.

  “Do we have a deal?”

  I looked at my brother and clenched my jaw. “Deal.”

  Satisfied, Mal put the jar into her bag and looped its strap over her shoulder. She gestured toward the door. “Shall we then?”

  “I need to get my things,” I said.

  She clicked her tongue. “Not so fast. Give me your phone. I don’t need you calling any of your friends at the police station.”

  I patted my leggings. “My phone is on my nightstand.”

  “Good. You don’t need things for this endeavor.”

  “I need my wallet, my ID, my badge—”

  “Fine, but make it fast.” Mal followed me to my bedroom.

  “There’s the phone.” I pointed to the nightstand. It was lit up with messages, but I didn’t stop to check them.

  “Leave it.”

  I picked up my backpack.

  “You don’t need all that,” she said.

  With a groan, I grabbed everything I could from it: my badge wallet, the ergane glove and bag . . .

  “Leave your guns here too.”

  With a sigh, I opened the combination lock and pulled my gun from its holster. I made sure my mother saw it before I placed it inside the safe. “Satisfied?”

  Her eyes drifted over me. I tensed, waiting for her to spot the bulge from the knife beneath my leggings. She missed it. Finally, she jerked her head toward the door. “Let’s go.”

  “I have a bad feeling about this, Nyx,” Ransom whispered as he opened the back-seat door to his truck for me.

  “So do I.” I got in, and he closed it behind me.

  Mal got up front with Ransom, and I buckled my seatbelt. Part of me wished I’d asked Orion to stay. It was the same part of me that worried I’d just gotten Ransom and myself in way over our heads.

  Ransom stopped at my driveway’s exit. “Which way?”

  “Turn right,” Mal said, staring straight ahead.

  Ransom turned onto the highway.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  She didn’t look at me. “You’ll see when we get there.”

  I checked the position of the sun in the sky. It was almost sunset. Like a demonic GPS, Mal gave Ransom turn-by-turn directions across town and around the scenic part of the lake.

  Ransom’s phone rang through the truck. Celise’s name came up on his display screen. He touched the answer button. “Hell
o?”

  “Ransom, we need to talk about what happened yesterday,” she said through the speakers.

  “Can’t talk right now. You’re on speakerphone in the truck. Nyx and Mal are here.”

  “Mal is with you?”

  I felt Celise’s surprise in my bones.

  “Hello, dear,” Mal said.

  “Uh . . . hi, Mal. Where are you all going?”

  “I honestly have no idea. Listen, I know we need to talk. I’ll come over as soon as I’m free,” Ransom said.

  “When will that be?”

  “No clue. I’ll call when I can.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Being a victim of extortion.” He slid a hateful glance toward our mother. “Mal claims to know where the hypnox is.”

  “It’s a family matter, Celise. The last I heard you didn’t want to be part of our family anymore.” Mal tapped the “end call” button on Ransom’s screen.

  “What the fuck, Mal?” he asked.

  “I’m doing you a favor, son.”

  “She’s already pissed at me enough.”

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  He looked at me in the rearview. “I stopped by there last night to drop off some stuff Milly left in my truck. I guess I was still sore from our conversation, so she opened a bottle of wine and invited me to stay.”

  I scowled. “Good god, you slept with her.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Ransom,” I whined.

  “I was buzzed. It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  I groaned. “You either need to figure out how to make things work or leave her alone.”

  “Your sister’s right,” Mal added.

  “Relationship advice from the two of you?” Ransom asked. “Really?”

  “Speaking of . . . Mal, I hear congratulations are in order,” I said.

  “For what?” she asked.

  “You got married again, didn’t you?”

  “Oh, yes.” She could not have sounded any less enthused if she’d tried.

  “To the fine specimen of humanity you brought to Gran’s funeral?” Ransom asked.

  “You’re one to talk, son,” she replied with a smirk. “Don’t worry. You’ll get to know him soon enough.”

  “Have you told him about me?” he asked.

  She ignored him. “Turn right on Sanctuary Drive.”

  I straightened in my seat. Only one thing was down that road.

  Ransom looked at her in horror. “Why?”

  “You’ll see,” she said again.

  Sanctuary Drive’s literal dead end was at the stone gate of Sapphire Lake Memorial Valley. Since Gran had been buried there, the place had become sacred ground for our family—well, most of our family, anyway.

  Nestled beneath the mountains that overlooked the lake, the small valley was a quiet resting place for the departed. Ransom and Paps visited every time they were in town, but I’d only been back once since we’d laid Gran to rest in May.

  “You know where your grandmother is buried?” Mal asked Ransom.

  “Yeah.”

  “Go there.”

  The valley was never a hopping place, but as it was close to sundown, it was especially deserted. We passed an older woman visiting a grave on the lower hill, but we didn’t see another car until we reached the upper slope of the valley.

  A black SUV was parked on the loop that surround the property.

  Essex?

  Ransom parked around the curve from it, and the three of us got out. Mal carefully scanned the area, but like me, she didn’t see another soul.

  Weird.

  She eyed the SUV suspiciously as we passed, and I paused to look in the window. On the passenger’s seat was an empty plastic bag marked Lakeview Comics.

  It was Essex.

  Mal stepped off the road and started up through a clearing at the base of the mountainside. The three of us walked beneath tall pine trees up the steep incline. Had to give it to Mal, managing the trek in three-inch heels. I’d have been on my ass a few times.

  She turned and crossed over a rocky path from a dried up mountain stream. On the other side was a small hill. From its direction, a muffled male voice was carried on the breeze.

  She ascended the hill ahead of us and stopped at its crest. Her hand went to her hip. “Who the hell are you?”

  Ransom and I picked up the pace to the top, and I saw Essex below. He stood on a wide overlook of the cemetery beside a six-foot black poppy. The growth was as wide as it was tall, covered in four-petal blooms with fresh pods ripening on the long stems. A few of the pods had been scored with a blade. Several others were withered and dead.

  “Holy shit,” Ransom said, his mouth gaping.

  Essex’s eyes locked on me. “Nyx?”

  Mal turned my way. “You know this person?”

  No point in denying it. “Yep.” I sidestepped down to the overgrown landing. “What are you doing here?”

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Being blackmailed. How did you find it?”

  “Gramma T was at Sterling Heights with Teek. I asked her about Kush, and she said he’d been spending a lot of time at the cemetery visiting his mother.”

  I remembered the woman I’d seen in the painting at Borg’s house.

  “Thought I’d swing by and check it out. I saw this bluff and figured a pothead like Kush might find it a good place to get high. Guess I was right.”

  On the ground was a broken lighter, an empty package of rolling papers, and rusty razor blades. All clear signs the drug had a frequent visitor.

  I put my hands on my hips. “Stoners always amaze me. Most people wouldn’t know a poppy plant if it sprouted from the pages of an actual textbook.”

  “More shocking still that he didn’t die from it up here,” Essex said.

  “Seriously,” I agreed.

  He looked back at Mal. “Is that who I think it is?”

  “Yes. Have you called this in?”

  “Just now. Units are on the way.”

  “Good. Maybe they can take that witch to jail.” I tipped my chin toward Mal.

  Ransom, almost in a trance, walked toward the plant.

  “Ransom, stay back!” I called, double stepping to catch up with him. “That shit’s lethal.”

  “But have you ever seen opium grow so tall?” He reached for one of the stems, and I smacked his hand away.

  “I’ve never seen opium growing at all, and you shouldn’t have either.” Shaking my head, I walked to the cliff’s edge. The sun had set over the lake, painting the sky orange and pink. It would be dark soon. “What was Elias doing here?”

  “Watching your grandmother’s service.” Mal came and stood beside me.

  “He was?” I asked, surprised.

  “He was right here before the service started.”

  My eyes drifted toward where we’d all been gathered at Gran’s final resting place below. I could almost see us by the casket: Paps clinging to my arm, Ransom holding Milly, Mal walking up as the box was being lowered into the ground.

  I faced my mother. “How did you know where Elias was before Gran’s service started?”

  “I saw him, of course.”

  “But how? You were late.”

  Mal blinked.

  “Where were you before the service?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I saw you coming from this direction. Holy shit.” I took a step back. “You killed him.”

  “What?” Ransom asked.

  “Mal killed Elias.” Even to my own ears, my voice sounded distant. Foreign, almost like it belonged to someone else.

  Mal rolled her eyes. “No, I didn’t. Elias died in prison.”

  I pointed at the plant. “But his blood was spilled here.”

  I remembered the surprise in Mal’s eyes as she stared at Ransom and me talking back at my condo. He’d just said that hypnox grows where the blood of a scion is spilled.

/>   “You didn’t know,” I said, astonished.

  Guilt flooded Mal’s face.

  “Know what?” Ransom asked.

  “She didn’t know how to grow hypnox.” I folded my arms. “Maybe Elias was smarter than I gave him credit for. He may have allowed you to use the drug, but he didn’t trust you enough to tell you how to create it.”

  Her eyes fell enough to confirm my statement.

  “You knew he would come to the funeral. And you killed him so that his power would pass to Ransom.”

  “The missing dagger,” Ransom said. “Did you break into my house?”

  “It’s really embarrassing that you use your daughter’s birth date as a password, Ransom,” she said.

  “You selfish demon.” I walked away, shaking my head. “You killed our father?”

  “Oh, please.” She gave a disgusted snort. “Don’t act like this is some unbearable tragedy. You hated that man.”

  “That’s so far beside the point,” I snapped. “Why? Why now?”

  She stepped toward me. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be an ex-con? No decent jobs hire felons, and you can’t sign a lease or a buy a car without income. I lost everything. Would you have me live in squalor?”

  “As opposed to murder?” I spread my arms. “Yes! Besides, what about your new husband? Or the nice little nest egg you and Elias socked away?”

  “The money’s gone!” She pointed at Ransom. “Or would you have wanted me to leave your brother in jail?”

  I shook my head. “Don’t you dare act like you did that for anyone but yourself.”

  She didn’t rebut.

  “And what was your grand plan for Ransom’s repayment of the debt?” I asked.

  “Only to take back what is rightfully owed to me.” She pounded her finger against her breastbone.

  “You’d really have him rob Renzo?”

  “Your father helped make Lorenzo Bianchi a lot of money. How dare he turn us over to the police after everything—”

  “You mean, after you cheated on him and left him for Elias?” I asked.

  Her lower jaw shifted to the side, and she crossed her arms with an obstinate huff.

  I looked at Essex. “Can we arrest her for murder?”

  His jaw went slack. “How would you prove it?”

  “You heard her. She confessed!”

  “To murdering the spirit of a man who was locked up in prison,” he said slowly.